Sean Akizuki's East Asian Drama and Movie Blog

  Barbie Xu's 50th birthday was a few days ago. Barbie was buried at Chin Pao San, where Teresa Teng was buried. The Teresa Teng TV series   was filmed in 2018 and only came out in 2024. I had a scary thought because the two celebrities are buried in the same cemetery. I thought about what if the Teresa Teng TV series didn't start in 2018 but started in the 2000s. Jerry Yan sang "The Moon Represents My Heart". I even felt that Barbie could've played Teresa better than Michelle Chen. Sure, Michelle was able to carry Teresa's performance. However, Barbie may have been able to carry it out better. I watched Teresa Teng: Wish We Last Forever . I thought, what if the series happened in 2005 — ten years after Teresa died. What if Barbie played Teresa? I feel Barbie could've nailed every last bit of it. However, the scenes where Teresa collapses with no direct help and dies while in the ambulance. Those scenes would become too scary after February 3, 2025, if Bar...

  The late Teresa Teng had a messy love life. However, not all of it was written into the script. Zhou Taisheng may have been based on a real person her brother Deng Changfu talked about, but out of respect, didn't use the real name. The TV drama also skipped her one-time romance with Jackie Chan and the late Lin Zhenfa. Instead, the most-focused one was with Beau Kuok. However, for obvious legal reasons which I didn't know existed — they used the name Wang Zhongwen. I believe that the directors probably talked with Beau Kuok himself, asked about the details, and perhaps even brought the actor Peter Ho and had an agreement that Beau would be portrayed UNDER A PSEUDONYM for privacy reasons. The name Wang Zhongwen was used for that reason. Was Indonesia used as a creative shield or a reality? I researched the Kuok Group (where Beau came from), and yes, they had a business in INDONESIA. Teresa also had a career in Indonesia. Changfu would've carefully guarded confidential det...

As I was watching Teresa Teng: Wish We Last Forever —  I thought SOMEONE had to look super familiar! Yes, it was Li Li-Feng who died on November 21, 2018. She died sometime after her 67th birthday on November 9 that same year. She was 67 years old when she died of pancreatic cancer. That would put her in the same category as the late famous Japanese actress Soga Machiko. Soga died of cancer in May 7, 2006, of cancer at 67 years old. People who watched Chiung Yao dramas may notice Li-Feng playing characters older than her. What was amazing was that Li-Feng was actually YOUNGER than Chin Han. Chin Han was actually born on July 10, 1946. Let that sink in: Li-Feng was actually born in 1951, making her FIVE YEARS YOUNGER than Chin Han. It might be funny, BTS, but she played in several extremely tearjerking dramas like How Deep is the Courtyard, where she played Bo Peiwen's unreasonable mother. I even wonder if she was considered to be cast as Daoming Feng in Meteor Garden — given that s...

It's a good thing I finally found a way on YouTube to watch Teresa Teng: Wish We Last Forever,  starring Michelle Chen as the titular character. Thankfully, any creative liberties here were guided by her brother Deng Chang-Fu, unlike what happened to Mei Yanfang Fei in 2007. What was creepy was that the TV series came out in 2004 — sometime before Barbie Xu died in Japan of pneumonia (while Teresa died of asthma), and both celebrities are buried at Chin Pao San in Taiwan! This triggered me to write a nostalgia post between Thursday and Friday.  It was back in the 2000s when I heard of the tales Teresa committed suicide. I remember starting to like Teresa's music because of one band — F4! Back in 2003, I remember when Jerry Yan sang "The Moon Represents My Heart". The song was already sung by other singers like Poon Sow-Keng. The popularization was done by Teresa's voice — often described as "sweet as honey". The Japanese producer Yukio Sasaki discovered ...

Hype I decided to give Teresa Teng (2024) a shot, and it stars Michelle Chen. I decided to Google "Zhou Taisheng" and realized he was created as a placeholder for several characters. Sure, the real-life boyfriend Paul Quilicier was featured. However, Zhou Taisheng doesn't exist when I Googled him! The real deal of Teresa's rather messy love life had these men involved: Lin Zhengfa, who suddenly died just as they were about to get married, a prominent Chinese Malaysian Jackie Chan, before he met Joan Lin Beau Kuok, a Malaysian tycoon; she broke up with him when the family demanded she stopped singing Paul was the last one, who was a French photographer, featured in the film  It made me think of the challenges of a biopic. Sure, Teresa's third older brother Deng Changfu (or Teng Ch'angfu) was involved. Some events that happened there were real. However, the biopic created Taisheng as a placeholder as Teresa's childhood sweetheart. It made me wonder how the b...

2026 is the 55th birthday of the Kamen Rider franchise overall. It's already known that I'm NOT particularly interested in the Showa-era  Kamen Rider series . It can be helpful to watch some old shows (like watching older Super Sentai seasons, which is now advisable if you haven't), but there are times when newer shows can be better (based on execution). Kamen Rider Zeztz is on the 55th year of The First Kamen Rider,  with Kamen Rider Revice being the 50th year. So yeah, I confess I was already feeling indifferent about Kamen Rider causing me to barely give "updates" or even reactions of updates here, in favor of other passions or watching some older media I haven't watched. Zeztz's premise has Baku Yorozu as the main Kamen Rider recruited by the Confidential Organized Defensive Establishment, or CODE. CODE's supposedly fighting the phenomenon called Nightmares -- monsters born out of nightmares. The Nightmares affect both dreams and the real world. Th...

  The F4 tour is over. Honestly, I still feel like inwardly weeping because Barbie Xu died too soon in 2025. The F4 reunion concert had F4 (because Ashin took Ken Chu's place). As the tour concludes, I never realized I would be writing this. Right now, let's get into parts of Meteor Garden that operated on Manga logic -- because it was based on a MANGA!  F4's ABSOLUTE DOMINION of Ying De (and why Ying De STILL SURVIVES) needs extra plot armor The F4 or Flower Four are basically Manga characters with plot armor. Seeing Hana Yori Dango the Anime was basically enlightening. I always commented how Jerry Yan looks too much like Tsukasa or how Vic Zhou looks like Rui. The dynamics of Ying De (or Eitoku in the Manga) are basically a school where F4 reigns with impunity.  F4's villainy is LOUD AND PROUD. Daoming Si or Ah Si reigns with 100% IMPUNITY until he was challenged by Shan Cai. In reality, Taiwan's very strict academic environment would've already shut down Ying...